There are times when a car is nice to have around; like when you have to haul 3 guitars, 2 banjos, two fiddles, a mandolin and a uke, as well as attendant amplification system, 50 miles in the middle of an upstate NY winter. Even a really good train system don't cut it for that.

Still I used my car so seldom that I went without some time ago; with the caveats that I fly solo and that I still have one available at real need.

Even so, consider this:

Thank you for the fuel supply surplus.Yours truly,The Military-Industrial Complex

Petroleum oil is such incredibly useful stuff that anyone who thinks that every drop of it that can be practically obtained isn't going to be used is being a bit naive. The question is over what time span, by whom and for what.

I have a family. My mom is in a wheelchair, my kids are of different ages and go to different schools. There's got to be some allowance in this campaign for a cleaner planet for people who need to get to get from here to there, without drawing in the military industrial complex.

It's not naivete, my friend. It really can be okay for me to like my bike and a car...all things in moderation should suffice, right?

Actually, I considered it far more relevant that just because I sold MY car doesn't imply that I am without car. In the same light just because I recently sold all my film cameras and bought a digital doesn't mean I've committed to digital; since it would take me about 5 minutes to borrow a film camera which I'm going to inherit anyway.

It's always a lot easier to go parachuteless skydiving while wearing a good chute; although it does tend to put paid to any claim of moral superiority.

". . .without drawing in the military industrial complex."

I think it's a perfectly relevant point to those who actually think (and they exist) that the gallon of gas they don't burn is a gallon of gas never burnt.

"It really can be okay for me to like my bike and a car..."

The cars I HAVE owned include Porsche, Alfa and Maserati. Not the CV of a car hater; even if I do wish them out of the city center.

Simply Bike had a lovely recent post that summed it up quite well, short trips (4 - 5 miles or less) from home can often be easily done by bike. I think even the most die hard bike commuter understands that many trips for many different reasons are not practical or feasible by bike but the point is to do what we can to decrease our dependence on oil.

KFG-"I think it's a perfectly relevant point to those who actually think (and they exist) that the gallon of gas they don't burn is a gallon of gas never burnt."

While I consider myself an intelligent person, I had not really given that point an active thought. Of course the oil will get used regardless of my behavior, and on a less deliberate level, I realized that all along.

The best any of us can do is to not contribute to the destruction any way we can. Drive when you have to, but only then. Ride a bike, take a bus/train, walk at other times. Be creative about "need" and find ways to "need" less.

If I may be so bold as to bring up Thoreau again, he noted that he was not brought into the world to cure its evils, but simply to live in it. Nor could he cure its evils if he wanted to, but what he COULD do was deny evil his compliance.

Along those lines I don't, however, ride a bike to decrease my dependence on oil so much as I ride a bike to INCREASE my independence.

In my case, at least at the moment, that includes independence from registered state privileges, insurance companies, banks, mechanics and to a large extent the attentions of the police.

Independence from oil is a tricky business though. Setting aside for the moment the oil used to produce my bike in the first place, the banana that I use to fuel it did not walk from Argentina to NY.